ANN ARBOR -- Michigan defensive coordinator Greg Mattison will have a new view of his unit this season.

Head coach Brady Hoke moved Mattison away from the defensive line, and gave him the role of linebackers coach so -- per Hoke -- Mattison could coach his group from the "middle of the defense."

But while he'll have a new view of how everything's going, Mattison says its an old trick that needs to improve if the Wolverines are going to take big strides on defense in 2014.

"We need to be a better blitzing team," Mattison said last week as the Wolverines began spring practice. "Everybody says 'it didn't seem like you were as aggressive as you were the first year.' Well, as a coordinator, I'm going to call pressures.

"As long as the pressures get there."

During Mattison's first season as Hoke's defensive coordinator in 2011, the pressure game -- both from the defensive backfield and from the linebacker perspective -- was a huge factor in Michigan completely resurrecting a defensive unit that had fallen apart under former coach Rich Rodriguez.

That group, as Mattison explained, was able to -- as a unit -- make those pressure packages pay off by getting home to the quarterback more often than not.

It was also a group, he says, that was able to win the necessary 1-on-1 battles it needed to.

A year ago? Mattison's defense struggled with this concept.

"The only thing a blitz, as you would know it, does is get people 1-on-1," he said. "You can't do any more than that. When you send an extra person, you're trying to ensure that someone in the group that's coming is going to be 1-on-1.

"And you've got to beat somebody 1-on-1, and that's something we didn't do a very good job of (last year)."

Part of what helps any good blitzing team is the ability to rely on physical, athletic cornerbacks that can cover wide receivers on an island. Michigan wasn't able to do much of that a year ago.

Mattison also said it's the responsibility of the players involved in the blitz to make it all the way to their destination, without any excuses.

So while most might point to Michigan's defensive backfield struggles as a reason for Mattison's hesitation to call blitzes a year ago, he says it had as much to do with the failed pressures from the front seven as anything else.

"When you send people and don't beat somebody 1-on-1, now everybody goes 'why is the secondary so poor,' " Mattison said. "Well, maybe they weren't poor. Maybe the guys who were blitzing or the defensive line or whoever was 1-on-1 didn't get home.

"That's a big emphasis now. We're going to pressure, but we've got to make sure when we do pressure, whoever the 1-on-1 guys have to beat people."

Mattison and company will add a potential wild card to this whole blitz game in the fall when five-star corner Jabrill Peppers joins the team. Peppers has the prototypical size, speed and athleticism to cover wideouts all alone on the outside -- possibly freeing up extra defenders to pressure the offense.

However, Mattison says the improvement in this area has to be more than just adding one body.

"It's about technique, it's about age, it's speed, it's strength," Mattison said. "It's things that happen with maturity. I think it's probably believing that's going to be the emphasis, so you practice it more.

"You say 'we're going to do this, let's make sure we get it right and get it done.' "